Monday Notes: (re)Defining and being human
Future intelligence is unpredictable. Would it be collective human intelligence, or collective techno-social (cyborg) intelligence? Or something else we cannot even imagine? And what this kind of intelligence would mean? This is both scary and amazing, something we cannot understand right now. It is stressful to not know where technological acceleration is leading. We want stability in our life, however the only we can do is to be bricoleurs of our lives. Is it possible to lose myself through technology, to not be human any more? Maybe it would be positive to be a techno-God, but I then won’t be human any more. And all this advances and transitions cause instabilities in my life, which is quite confusing and causes me great stress. We need stability in our life, so we have to created it even in a technological accelerated era. To achieve this we need a qualitatively different intelligence, an intelligence that serves sustainability of life on the planet. Till now, we have algorithmic determination: algorithms taking care of more and more situations. And if we humans are capable of causing damages, algorithms would be. But in any case, we cannot stop or reverse technological acceleration; the river do no go backwards. However, transhumanism is a Hubris: Extreme pride, foolish arrogance, challenging the gods, and inviting nemesis. It is a Hubris to not set limits. We cannot be humans if we eliminate pain, it is a Hubris to want to be gods. Welcome to the new brave super(ficial) dystopia we want to create by eliminating what makes us human. Do we really want to create a super-human that is no human anymore? And how we define humaness? Being trapped in a good vs bad logic we miss the complexity of the situation that arises. Why not instead “grow a counter-culture based on lucidity and understanding of emotional complexity and irrationality of human existence?” At the end, who wants to live forever? There is so much beauty in the world because there is an End in experiencing it. And would a ‘perfect’ technology eliminate human suffering, end the wars, and bring justice on Earth? or would bring Technological terrorism?
Film: An Ecology Of Mind- A Daughter’s portrait of Gregory Bateson Directed by Nora Bateson
Short brainstorming following the documentary viewing:
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Some extra links
And an interesting link about complexity, unpredictability, and possibilities for evolution:
Life is complex. It just is. “To be alive is to be in constant interaction with the complexity that exists all around us and within each living organism—and more, as complexity includes ideas, cultures, and the curious, infinite responses between them. The pursuit of making sense of life, for any organism, requires participating in the interrelational characteristics of complexity in every moment. The ability to make sense of the surrounding world is fundamental to survival and sometimes results in evolution. To walk across a room, plant a garden, or make love is to engage, mostly unconsciously, with what seems to be an impossible array of complex processes. Sense-making is a process of processes, merging conceptual, physical, sensorial, biological, and linguistic systems within larger contexts of culture and the biosphere. Interdependencies form and inform these contexts. Complexity is vast.” (Nora Bateson, 2019)
from Bateson, N. (2019). I Want You to Want Me to Want You [and vice versa]: The Simple Complexity of Sexual Consent. Journal of Design and Science. Retrieved from https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/hqglqga6
Detailed Monday Notes of previous week’s reflections
(re)defining and being human
(17 reflections compiled until Monday night)
“Unpredictable Intelligence… I always thought unpredictability is bad, because often we want to have the control about us and the things, which happen around us. But sometimes unpredictabilty is very good: It allows freedom and creativity. This allows us to change things. To follow our dreams. That allows us to find our own ways to our dreams. There are often many circuitous routes and not straight roads. Sometimes we have to change our plan, but if we do not give up, then we will arrive at our destination!” –chocolatelover98
Future intelligence is unpredictable. Would it be collective human intelligence, or collective techno-social (cyborg) intelligence? Or something else we cannot even imagine?
“Living in an era of acceleration … I was first (to be honest) a bit bored because words like technological singularity or physics sound not as interesting to me as words like predictability, human’s histories or environmental aspects do. … But what does infinite intelligence mean? And how can humans create this? … Realizing this was kind of scary but at the same time amazing to me. I am not able to really understand all those processes, but I am impressed by all the developments which are also a product of our era of acceleration.” –strawberrykid
And what this kind of intelligence would mean? This is both scary and amazing, something we cannot understand right now.
” Let’s celebrate the fact that life is unpredictable ! … the beauty of the life is when we are surprised by things, good things. … when I arrived in Athens I didn’t know what was going on, and I loved to discover this city, to meet new people, to have an unpredictable life without knowing how the next day will be. It can be stressful, but even if something bad happens, if we fail, we can take advantage of this to be stronger. I really liked the example with the “bricoleur” that nothing is planned, we only make our creativity works to create new and beautiful things… Unpredictable future.” –erasmusblackout
It is stressful to not know where technological acceleration is leading. We want stability in our life, however the only we can do is to be bricoleurs of our lives.
“When the subject “acceleration” was broached, I firstly – thanks to my English skills, no idea how this happened – understood “exaggeration”. … “Yes, so true. Everything totally exaggerated,” I thought to myself and felt understood. … Do we use this acceleration to take the right path as soon as possible? Or are we just being replaced by technology? Isn’t that exactly what I am afraid of? To be replaced? To be useless? To lose my and I mean literally, in every sense MY voice?… There might be new opportunities but who will I be? And do I want to be the entity I will be? My knowledge of human nature, my empathy and my ability of abstraction, my openness to risks and perspectives, my well-intentioned advice to friends and my steadfastness in debates, much of what constitutes me and my identity, may become superfluous. Worthless. … I still have to recognize and see these positive sides probably. And acknowledge them which I do not right now. Structuring the unstructured, however, also reminds me of ideologies and forms of rule, of historical events that have caused the earth to tremble. Things might improve, or they do not. N After rain comes sun. True. After sun comes rain. Equally true.” –acceptallrealities
Is it possible to lose myself through technology, to not be human any more? Maybe it would be positive to be a techno-God, but I won’t be human any more.
“There is a bigger picture which is getting more clearer every week, but for now it is still vague. It builds and is creating his own road to the future. In conclusion, the last two lectures didn’t made any sense to me. In the end I am sure to see the bigger picture and to understand why I needed this confusion. For now, my thought process is blurry and not unambiguously. I think this will be needed to cause something to start working..?” –thedutchstudent
And all this advances and transitions cause instabilities in my life, which is quite confusing and causes me great difficulties. We need stability in our life, so we have to created it even in a technological accelerated era.
” A closing gap … What is Intelligence ? From what we get from our fellow psychologists, the most accurate definition would be « the one who is better adapted to its own environment ». … research called ethology, animals seem to be quite smart according to the definition we saw above. Let’s take for example the language cognitive capacity. I am sure many of you heard this story before, but a female gorilla named Koko managed to learned the sign language. She could express a lot of things, like her fear of humans destroying the world. Kanzi, a bonobo, is able to understand complex sentences with a syntax. To take another example, pigeons have a very good memory, maybe better than humans. … But if we begin doubting the superiority of the human intellect compared to animals, then doesn’t the machines’ skills take a whole new perspective ?” –elerasmus
To achieve this we need a qualitatively different intelligence, and intelligence that serves sustainability of life on the planet.
” Living in an Era of acceleration for example in social media everything is determinated by algorithms, like facebook that connects anyone anywhere in the world, created in 2004 or even Wikipedia free encyclopedia created in 2001. Both requires algorithms to operate. After, we studied the Gaia Hypothesis. …We have to be careful with artificial intelligence, if humain is capable to destroy the life, the environment, or relations with other, artificial intelligence can do worse.” –phiphiii
For now, we have algorithmic determination: algorithms taking care of more and more situations. And if we humans are capable of causing damages, algorithms also are.
“We talked in class about Living in an Era of Acceleration and really things are moving so fast with technology. The good thing but in the same time also problematic thing is that this really is unstoppable. We will see what happens in the next years but I’m pretty sure it will be things our parents would have never thought are even possible.” –somewhereinathens
And we cannot stop or reverse technological acceleration; the river cannot go backwards.
“Transhumanism ramble … the last video we watched left me with a bitter sweet feeling….To conclude this post, I can confidently say I am not a “transhumanist”. The video we watched about this matter just made me very angry, to be honest. The idea of living forever, of having infinite time on earth, erases the goal of living a full life altogether. Death is a scary prospect, but I think is bearable compared to a life without limits of time. Without it we wouldn’t be able to learn and move forward and create again life. …” –caffelover
However, transhumanism is Hubris. Extreme pride, foolish arrogance, challenging the gods, and inviting nemesis.
” We can´t predict our future, that´s why let´s celebrate it! These words are not simple to understand and internalize but the point is, that due to impossibility of life or action prediction we have no limits! No matter, what is your initial and current situation, you can always create and be anything/anybody you want. They main thing here are courage and creativity. Our creative minds have created machines and then AI to help us. … It´s not a science fiction, it`s a science future! S… The evolution made us not to be happy but survival. And isn´t suffering sometimes a good thing? So our minds and technologies open us a lot of oppotunities but also challanges. We often think like machines and nowadays machines think like we. So we have to be courageous and creative to be different and valuable for ourselves and the society. But where are the limits? … So how far should we go and who is entitled to regulate these processes?” –itsright
It is a Hubris to not set limits. We cannot be humans if we eliminate pain, it is a Hubris to want to be gods.
” Transhumanism – welcome to our super(ficial) society? … … On the one hand progress seems so exciting, to see where all our new possibilities can lead. What humans can become. But what is human? I felt myself shaking my head so hard during the video. Super-Longevity. Super-Intelligence. Super-Wellbeing. Will all of us live in a Brave New World where everything is just SO super? I felt desperate watching the video…. a dystopian novel, but is this what we want humanity to become? Isn’t the capability of negative feelings and thoughts, of connecting with each other, being able to hurt and love deeply a really human characteristic? …” –sweatashoney
Welcome to the new brave super(ficial) dystopia we want to create by eliminating what makes us human.
” Why so “Super” ? …Nowadays, I’m feeling more worried about the future, in terms of ten or hundred years. … Cause, “Super-Longevity. Super-Intelligence. Super-Wellbeing” illustrated very well the way of thinking of the society in general since many years now. We have the fad to think about efficiency, productivity and profitability in every domain that we begun to use it too in term of people, even outside the professional field. Who said that humans had to be that “Super” ? … We should just continue to be as much human as we can, by being proud of our own-efficiency and stop thinking that every robot can do it better than us. I’m aware that AI can and, surely will help us in many fields, but we have to pay attention to not try to switch positions with the machines that we create at the first place. … So how can we define intelligence ? …” –erasmusouth
Do we really want to create a super-human that is no human anymore? And how we define humaness”
“God and machines … What busts every single person to make efforts and go on it’s the desire, but also the conviction, that it’s possible to live a more enjoyable and easier life, in three words: to be happier. … The unpredictability leads people not only to idealize the past, the only one that they experienced and know, but also to demonize the future. Every generation critic the incoming one and every step towards the progress is supposed to conduce us to the downfall. Human life evolves but its dynamics are basically always the same. In my opinion reducing the technological revolution as something “good” or “bad” is the best way to lose sight of its complexity… This is not about machines or artificial intelligences, it’s about us. What if we’ll find out that machines can not only learn and improve themselves but also desire and have feelings. Could we still talk about souls, life after death and believe there is a reason why we are here? Do we still would like to be alive after the Death of God?” –columbedda
Being trapped in a good vs bad logic we miss the complexity of the situation that arises.
“Our Will & our Wheels … I particularly appreciated our last class together. Especially its beginning as Professor Brailas, after having described us as a “superorganism” in the Monday notes, started the course with the following words: “you know, life is unpredictable… and it’s all good”. This kind of meditative reminders makes me feel happy. Lucky to be able to experience life as a human being, to have a wide panel of emotions, to understand complexity or just to appreciate simple beauty in everyday life (trying)… And instead of dwelling on all those frightening things that could happen, why couldn’t we grow a counter-culture based on lucidity and understanding of emotional complexity and irrationality of human existence? Finally, we broached the topic of feedback loops and saw how the behavior of a wheel thrown away from a slippery slope was representative of the effect of such a “positive” loop. Well the future, you understood, is uncertain. The complexity and the unknown produce fascinations and dreams. But one day it won’t be the appearance of a killer robot looking like Schwarzenegger that will signal the beginning of our end, but maybe tires tired of being thrown away.” –doyoucopy
Why not instead “grow a counter-culture based on lucidity and understanding of emotional complexity and irrationality of human existence?”
““Who wants to live forever?” … The Video on Transhumanism just left me behind feeling so disappointed, so shocked about the narrow minds of my fellow human beings, so sad about the egocentrism I am confronted with. … Where do you think Mr. Peter Thiel your right is coming from to force all those who are coming after you to try their best to bring you back to life just because you decided to freeze your dead body? How do we even call that “Messiah Complex”– no its not even that because you don’t want to be immortal to help others, it is just your inability to except that there is an End to your life. I am asking myself: Why is being immortal even a goal one would wish for? How would being ALIVE change in the absence of death? What would forever even mean? Brian May “Who wants to live forever?” I certainly don’t! Even tough I am constantly writing about sooo many things that make me sad and angry, I just want to emphasise that there is so much beauty in the world, and I believe knowing there is an End to experiencing it, is what makes Beauty.” –nowordsneeded
At the end, who wants to live forever? There is so much beauty in the world because there is an End in experiencing it.
“Far from everything … I think that technology is not going to be “more intelligent than” because I can’t imagine something more intelligent than all the nature. Also we, the humans, we though that we are more intelligent than most of the species in the world, than the mountains and the rivers, and the see. I am very proud only about one thing that humans have really developed: feelings. Why are we so obsessed with technology when we have the world broken around us? … Why aren’t we able to don’t hate the others, to don’t kill them, hurt them, torture them? We are far from equilibrium. But what equilibrium means? A perfect technology? A perfect world? And if I am here writing this words is because I have a perfect life, my parents are not poor, I have a nationality, privileges, and reasons for smile.” –almanzor
And would a ‘perfect’ technology eliminate human suffering, end the wars, and bring justice on Earth?
” … When we asked ourselves “is it possible to create an AI smarter than us?”, I said yes. I think that people like to develop their knowledge, to know and always want more. Technology will not stop there and man will continue to push technology to the forefront. I don’t know if she will be smarter because I don’t think she will ever have emotions and feelings, so I don’t think she will be better than the man. But it will certainly have much greater capabilities for some functions. And if technology were to reach a singularity, my fear is that man would lose control of it, and that all this would surpass us, that we would be dominated by a form of superior intelligence over which we no longer have control. Ray Kurzweil, a futurist and theorist of transhumanism and technological singularity, believes that AI could equal human AI by 2029. I did some research and he wrote a book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, where he already predicts that machines will be smarter than humans by 2029 and that by 2045, “computers will be billions of times more powerful than human intelligence alone”. From my point of view, it is clear that technology nowadays helps us a lot in all areas but this evolution is not to be taken lightly and I think we must know how to create new things but do it in a reasonable way. The most beautiful things, the most beautiful moments are the simplest and most authentic memories that life has created for us, these are the ones that remain engraved in our memories. So creating new technology is good, but it would be a shame if it took away all the happiness we already have before our eyes and made it disappear.” –minnierasmus
Technological terrorism.